I don't remember specifically when I first started hearing about the scourge that is Generation X. It was somewhere in my high school or college years, but more detail than that I can't give. I do, however, remember specifically that at the time, the media reports discussing the scourge that is Generation X were saying that the last Gen-Xers were born in 1975. That's a year before I was born, so I felt enthusiastic, optimistic, and even a bit entitled at having dodged that bullet.

It wasn't to last, though. Before long, the birth range for Generation X was extended to 1978, turning me into the lazy, sullen, apathetic sod I am today.

In an unrelated event (I swear—it happened a few months before I joined the staff), AL dug up a bit of controversy on the generational issues front in May 2004, with a cover story titled "What Will Gen Next Need to Lead." (pp. 32-35) In it, authors Arthur Young, Peter Hernon, and Ronald Powell related results of their "five-year study of what today's library directors see as desirable leadership attributes for their successors."

Several letters took the authors, and the magazine, to task for a variety of pretty well-founded reasons: The fact that none of the authors belonged to Generation X, that the survey hadn't asked opinions of any Gen-Xers, that its title was intentionally condescending, that the desirable attributes were desirable for leaders regardless of age, and that the whole concept of leadership needed to be rethought anyhow. (Aug. 2004, p. 35-36.)

I'm not going to defend the treatment here—I can see some legitimate reasons for it, but AL Editor Leonard Kniffel has expressed some interest in writing about it, and since he was here at the time he's probably got better insights than I. Instead, I'd like to examine some of the magazine's early intergenerational issues.

The Junior Members Round Table was founded, informally at least, in 1931. Despite not officially joining ALA until 1941, its activities made regular appearances in the Bulletin throughout the Thirties. And the JMRT was a reasonably active group, with projects such as Library literature, 1921-32, an update to a bibliography of library science writings; a series of Library Information Leaflets to help patrons use catalogs, periodical indexes, and other library tools; the "Dividends" section of the Bulletin, a neat little department relating specific examples of impressive service feats, such as a library helping a hospital increase the efficiency of its steam power plant, saving the city the cost of a new system; an essay contest; and state projects coordinated by regional subgroups (Jan. 1937, p. 13; Mar. 1937, p. 156-158; Apr. 1937, p. 231; Jan. 1938, p. 49).

The non-unifying non-theme: Almost none had any relation to age or the specific concerns of new librarians. There were a few—a survey of round table members' reactions to library schools, a statement by JMRT Chair Robert Miller at a 1933 meeting of the Board of Education for Librarianship on the JMRT's recommendations to address unemployment, and a directory of librarians under 35 in Louisiana compiled by that state's group (Feb. 1933, p. 97; Mar. 1934, p. 139; Mar. 1937, p. 158). But most of the JMRT's activities could have been done by any group.

There were only a couple of instances of overt hostility towards young librarians published during that era. One, a "quotation received recently from an Illinois librarian" whose name, sadly, wasn't revealed, declared that "Apparently they want the A.L.A. to be a sort of combination of a trade union with delegates to send around to fight their local salary and service battles, and a public relations office including a group of talent scouts to travel around and keep the juniors busy with frequent visits, local meetings, and chances to perform. ... As a national body it should concern itself with national and over-all affairs and should not have to worry about seeing that the junior members get their money's worth." (Apr. 1945, p. 152) In a second, Aubry Lee Hill of the public library in New Rochelle, New York, in her her address "Speaking for the Younger Generation" at the 1935 Annual Conference in Denver, read a letter she received from another unnamed librarian: "What some of you lack is unselfish idealism—you are so damnably ego-centric—and you lack humane tolerance and understanding of imperfections, which will give you the patience and ability to work yourselves to the top of a difficult situation instead of blowing up. ... P.S. You lack ballast, too, and you lack patina."

Nasty postscripts aside, the general tone the magazine took towards the juniors was one of mild condescension. Sadly, much of this tone came from the servility of the juniors themselves. For example, in 1938, Chair J.H. Shera's "Swan-Song of a Junior" pulls out a bunch of overwrought highbrow references (citing "Cassandrian qualities of perspective", the oppressive inertia facing Tolstoy or Gorki characters, the pacifism of Ferdinand the bull, and of course, Shakespeare) to prove that he's ready to graduate to the regular membership upon turning thirty-five. In 1934, JMRT Chair Louis Nourse declared library staff associations "A Job for Junior Members"—a double-whammy implication that neither junior members nor staff associations were good enough for the real members to worry about.

So it seems that the young have picked up ground in the intergenerational bicker-off. Go us! Of course, as generational date ranges seem to shift every so often, we all may find ourselves on a different side one day.

—Greg Landgraf, American Libraries editorial assistant